


Akaashi's First Crush

by poppyfields



Category: Haikyuu!!, Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Childhood, Childhood Memories, Crushes, Cute, Cute Kids, First Crush, Fluff, Gay, Gen, Headcanon, Manga & Anime, Pre-Canon, fictional crushes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:08:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28486608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poppyfields/pseuds/poppyfields
Summary: Just a short and sweet story of the first crush Akaashi Keiji ever had. On a fictional character, of course.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	Akaashi's First Crush

It was the fall of 2001.  
Meaning Akaashi Keiji was five years old.  
Meaning he had just started grade school that year.  
Meaning the full-time live-in nanny his parents had hired for him when he was a baby had been let go, but he could only be in school for, well, school hours, and his parents work, and their personal lives, extended past school hours.

Meaning they had to get a babysitter.

Sako Izumi was in her third year at middle school when she started watching Keiji. She was the daughter of some executive or something from Akaashi’s dad’s work. She only had older siblings but for some reason she’d always loved kids. She’d always been really good with them. She was really good with Keiji, too.

His parents weren’t really _kid people_. They loved Keiji, but they probably would have been just as happy without him. Maybe happier. Definitely if you walked into their big, high-rise apartment, you wouldn’t think they had a kid. Maybe if you caught them on an off day you’d find a couple of toys that had strayed from their place in the chic modern cabinets, or a tiny yellow hoodie that had been left on the couch instead of being hung up, but more or less it was the apartment of two professionals. It was the home of adults.

That’s why it was so fun when Izumi came around. She was 15, but in Keiji’s eyes she was a kid like him. She made silly faces with him, played with his toys, asked him questions about school, his friends, his hobbies. She made the whole place feel fun, feel alive, feel like home. 

The best part, though, was the DVDs. Akaashi had never had cable. His family had some satellite connection that allowed his parents to watch the 6 o’ clock news, and on Sundays sometimes that same channel would play cartoons, but honestly he rarely watched TV. Izumi on the other hand watched everything, and she especially loved Hunter x Hunter. She had the whole thing on DVD, even the ones that had just come out that spring. When she asked Keiji whether she should bring it the next time she was called to come over, after briefly describing the plot to him, he immediately said yes.

The second she played the first episode, Keiji was hooked. His parents normally made a bit of a fuss about him having engaging activities to do, and Izumi was pretty sure they wouldn’t be excited if she let him just watch anime for the entire four hours she was there, but he demanded a second episode, and she thought that would be fine.

It wasn’t even halfway through the second episode when Izumi started to notice how excited Keiji got when Gon was on the screen. His smile would slowly fade the longer a scene went without showing him, and then the second he spoke, or smiled, Keiji’s grin would return. As the credits played Izumi smiled.

“You like Gon, huh?”  
Keiji just stared at the brightly coloured screen, but he nodded enthusiastically.  
“What do you like about him?”  
“Everything,” he smiled, “he’s awesome. He’s super strong, and nice, and funny,” he turned his head quickly to face Izumi, “Do you like him Sako-chan?”

She couldn’t hold back her grin. It was so cute. It had taken a while to get Keiji to open up to her, but now he was gushing.  
“Yeah, Gon’s super cool.”  
Keiji smiled hearing her say it. Then he turned his head back to the screen, watching as the last of the credits rolled by.

They did end up spending the entire four hours watching Hunter x Hunter. Well, they had a short break in the middle when Izumi made dinner, but halfway through eating Keiji asked why they couldn’t eat and watch at the same time, and Izumi had no counter argument. She made sure to turn it off the second she heard voices in the hallway outside the apartment and she told the kid they could only watch the rest if he promised not to tell his parents. It wasn’t like it was bad, it was meant for kids like him, she just wasn’t sure how they’d react to the whole TV thing. She didn’t really want to find out.

Izumi was pretty sure she knew why Keiji loved Gon so much. She would say it casually to her friends, “the kid I’m babysitting has a crush on Gon”, but it was mostly just a joke. He was five years old and she didn’t want to seriously impose any kind of romantic feelings on a kid that young. It could just be an admiration, or simple entertainment, it wasn’t necessarily a crush. After the second day of watching, though, it was certain.

The second day they watched, Killua was finally introduced. Keiji immediately hated him. Well, it’s not fair to say immediately. He was perfectly fine with Killua right until the moment Gon smiled at him and said he was cool. The moment they exchanged their little look and their little laugh Keiji decided Killua had to go. 

“How much longer is he gonna be here?” Keiji asked when Killua appeared in the next episode too.  
It took Izumi a second to figure out what the question meant, “Oh, Killua? Forever.”  
Keiji frowned.  
“He’s one of the main characters, he’s in the whole rest of the show.”  
“I don’t want him to be.”  
Izumi laughed, “You don’t like him?”  
“He’s stupid,” Keiji’s eyes were still glued to the TV, tracking the way the two main characters looked at each other, “And he’s mean and I don’t know why Gon likes him.”

Izumi tried to hold back her chuckle, because Keiji seemed genuinely upset. Killua had only been introduced for less than 20 minutes at that point, she doubted the five year old could really have any sort of grasp on the character. She was pretty sure the only thing he could tell was that Gon liked him. He liked him and smiled at him and looked at him and Keiji didn’t like any of that. It wasn’t an admiration. It was definitely a crush.

They finished all 62 episodes in less than two months, which was saying a lot given that she only came over to babysit once, sometimes twice a week and normally for only about four or five hours each time. The second they were done, Keiji asked if there was more. When he found out there wasn’t he asked if they could rewatch it from the start again. That was a little much, even for Izumi who was a really big fan, but Keiji was so insistent that she had to just admit defeat. She decided, though, that they could only watch one episode every time they hung out. She couldn’t binge the whole thing again.

Slowly over time, Akaashi’s obsession waned. For his birthday Izumi got him a little Gon charm that she helped him fix to his bookbag and he loved it more than anything, but as they came into the new year, as he started his second year at grade school, as things changed, Hunter x Hunter stopped being the only thing occupying his mind. 

It was three years later, when Akaashi was eight and Sako was eighteen, when Keiji ran into his room to show her something the second she walked in the door. He came out with a manga. The newest volume of Hunter x Hunter.

“My friend from class let me borrow it,” he told her excitedly, “Remember, when we used to watch all the time?”  
Izumi smiled as she took the book from Keiji’s hands. Partly because she was interested in it, partly because it was fun to think back to when they would watch it, partly because Keiji was just so cute with that little proud smile of his.  
“Oh yeah, I remember you had a huge crush on Gon.”  
She was still inspecting the manga, flipping gingerly through the pages, so she didn’t notice Akaashi’s face growing red.  
“I didn’t have a crush on him,” he defended.

In the three years since she met him, Keiji had grown a lot more reserved. He was sort of desperate for friends when they’d met, so he attached to her quickly, but at eight years old he was starting to become more quiet, more like he was around his parents. 

By eight years old he knew what a crush was. They were still pretty new, pretty taboo, but he knew that boys had crushes on girls and girls had crushes on boys. He was pretty sure he’d never had a crush before. He didn’t know exactly where this nonsense about Gon had come from.

“Oh,” Izumi was looking down at him with a smile like she knew something he didn’t, like she wasn’t going to accept that as an answer, “Sure,” she said anyway.  
“I didn’t!” Keiji insisted, “What do you mean, I had a crush on him? Gon’s a boy!”  
Izumi raised her eyebrows and put her hands up in a surrender.  
“Yeah, whatever you say. I mean, normally when someone smiles every time they see someone, talks about them all the time, and gets mad when they smile at someone else it’s a sign they have a crush. I guess not for you, though.”  
Keiji’s blush darkened, “I- I didn’t do that!”  
He couldn’t remember though. Did he do that?

They were silent for a second. Keiji grew more uncomfortable by the second. Izumi’s smile slowly faded.  
“You know, it doesn’t matter that Gon’s a boy.”  
Keiji looked up at her with wide, unblinking eyes.  
“I’m a boy,” Izumi wasn’t sure if this was meant to be a correction, a reminder, or a defense, but it was all Keiji said.  
“Yes, yes you are.”  
Keiji was silent for another second.  
“Boys have crushes on girls.”  
Izumi frowned, wondering how this kid had learned this homophobic nonsense so young. She supposed everyone did though. She was just as dismissive of her girl crushes when she was his age.  
“Sometimes,” she said softly, “But sometimes not. Sometimes boys have crushes on boys, sometimes girls have crushes on girls.”  
Keiji looked up at her as she said it. Searching her eyes as if something in them would tell him if she was lying or not. Finally he dropped his gaze down to the floor.  
“Well, I don’t think I should do that.”

It sounded… It sounded wrong, to Keiji. That he could have a crush on a boy. That he had a crush on Gon. He didn’t know why but it sounded like something unlike him. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be the kind of person that did that.

Izumi slowly lowered her body, so she was looking the kid in the eye. Her expression was a little sad, but sweet, careful, loving.  
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Kei-kun.”  
She hadn’t called him that nickname in months at least. Keiji felt weird. His eyes started to glisten with tears.  
“Oh, oh, oh, no,” Izumi dropped the book to free up her hands to hold Keiji’s face, “No, no, no, don’t cry, it’s ok. It’s fine, it’s ok, you’re gonna be fine.”

Keiji felt warm with her hands on his cheeks and her voice in his ears. He was crying now, fully, but he was starting to feel better.  
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry I said you had a crush on Gon. If you say you didn’t, you didn’t, it’s ok.”

This made Keiji cry harder. Because as she said it, he realised she was right. He realised he did have a crush on Gon. However you defined it, as well as he understood crushes, he’d had that for Gon. He must have repressed it as some point in the last three years, but as he stood there crying he remembered going to sleep at night when they had first started watching. Every night he would imagine himself as Killua. As Gon’s best friend. He used to imagine all the adventures they would go on, all the inside jokes they would have. He had definitely repressed this one, but he had, at one point, imagined Gon kissing him. He probably knew even back then that it was a crush. There was a reason he hadn’t thought about that memory in so long.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Izumi pulled the kid into a hug, “It’s going to be ok.”  
Keiji was whimpering into her shoulder, and he said something that she couldn’t understand. She pulled back from him just a bit to let him repeat the sentence.  
“I have a crush on Gon,” he sobbed.  
Izumi tried to keep her smile down. It wasn’t funny. He was crying. It was kind of funny though. Eight years old and already crying about anime boys. She hugged him tight instead.  
“It’s ok, it’s ok,” she cooed into his ear.  
Keiji was sobbing, but she was pretty sure he was saying something like “I like him.”  
“Yeah, Gon’s really cool.”  
Slowly his sobs quieted, “he is,” he whimpered.  
Finally Izumi let herself chuckle.  
“He is.”

After a few seconds of silence, still holding him deep in a hug, Izumi whispered in Keiji’s ear.  
“You wanna watch an episode.”  
Keiji pulled back from the hug, wiping at his eyes and nose in a poor attempt to erase the evidence he was crying.  
“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a headcanon I came up with when I was writing my Bokuaka fic and I thought I'd write it out.


End file.
